just come home
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Was Sasuke the only one who knew what Itachi truly wanted? (Note: Itachi and Sasuke pairing)


**Fandom: Naruto  
Title: just come home.  
Rating: pg  
Pairing: Itachi + Sasuke  
Description – Was Sasuke the only one who knew what Itachi truly wanted? (Note: Itachi and Sasuke pairing)**

**Disclaimer – Naruto isn't mine.**

**just come home.  
By miyamoto yui**

The throbbing of my skin wouldn't stop.

I wiped my sweaty forehead and looked up to the clear sky. Like hands lightly scratching my face, one by one, the leaves fell down as if in slow motion. And yet, the moon shone as brightly as the sun that I had to cover my fatigued eyes.  
I knew that it was very late as the cicadas' humming became louder and louder. It was to the point that I couldn't even hear myself think.

Yet, I still had to practice.  
It was an addiction. Once your life was chosen for you, there was nothing else to do but to walk through it. And even though you didn't want to, your body was used to the impulses of routine, forcing you to continue an endless cycle of infliction.

You told yourself you should have rested. However, you continued on and on because it was already part of you, unable to stop it any longer.

"Choice" had no room against the stubbornness of "the will".

"Nngh! Ah~!" I shouted in exhaustion as I threw each shuriken at the tall tree fifty feet away from me. I had to make sure it was all in a perfect vertical line. There was no room for mistakes.  
A millimeter was only amateur work.

"Professional..." I kept on telling myself even though the cool breeze blew as I fell to the ground.

Drip drop drip. My sweat dripped to the ground and my palms pressed against the earth. My weak knees pressed onto the small pebbles that pierced into my open wounds. I closed my eyes in pain and breathed heavily, my lungs feeling heavier and heavier.

Unsteadily, I got up and I slowly turned over my hands.  
"In order to throw a shuriken, you have to become it." I repeated what Father had said to me as the blood dripped down the sides of my dirty hands, mixing with the grass and soil. I didn't know if I could ever wash all of it away.

I couldn't even count the number of small holes on my palm anymore.

I wanted to shout at the insanity of it all: What _was_ the fucking point of becoming stronger anyway?!

Even so, as I heard the rustling of the leaves, my bitterness couldn't even be satiated by my contorted rationalizations within my own head. It was all a game.  
At first, I just wanted to be the best for the sake of being the best. And then it got complicated when Father got interested in 'my potential'. If he only knew, it was just for him to leave me alone while keeping up his image of being 'a role model'.

My pride wouldn't let me shout out anything.  
Even at the hardest of times, I had to keep a straight face. Whether or not I won a competition at school, I had to keep a calm face. At home, I couldn't express my opinions because they had to coincide with my parents.

I had learned early on what it meant to have a stiff, unfeeling face…  
…until you could not move it at all.

It just showed that I could no longer be moved from within.

When had my childish, carefree days ceased to exist? It was the day I was told to be his role model.  
In doing so, I began to resent my brother since he was born. And the more he clung onto me, the more I wanted to distance myself from the brat.

I wanted him to never catch up to me...

I couldn't keep my eyes open and I blurrily looked at the tree I was using as target practice all this time. I had purposely done that because I could now just use pure, raw instinct.  
I had to feel my way around, which was my weakness all this time.

This was what I couldn't tell my parents or show to my classmates. It was the root of my shame.

I could feel auras, but being closed all these years, I could not fully sense things as well as Sasuke could. Because of his genuine care for people and things, these same people and things gravitated towards him, whether or not he wanted their attention.  
For me, I could only sense them like a pinch on my arm, but all my techniques covered this fault.

Of course, it was pretty useless because it had its own limits. It was like covering a mistake on a white canvas. The paint couldn't hide what you knew what was there.

Still, I continued to practice with my eyes closed, hoping to understand something I had no way of beginning to comprehend. Such a thing, I measured, was true talent.

_Why the hell was I in the middle of nowhere, practicing all alone?!_

I mumbled to myself, "I've had it…"  
I fell to the ground and crunched my eyes as I felt my knees crash onto the ground.

"Stop! Stop Aniki!"  
The brat's high-pitched voice stung my ears as I started to turn my head to face him, but stopped. Though I didn't fully turn around, I could hear his small footsteps running towards me. The grass cringed under his feet and I could hear the shortness of his breath.

"Aniki…Aniki…" he worriedly said again and again.

"Why are you here, Sasuke?!" I screamed, unable to hold my anger.

_I didn't want you, of all people, to see me like this!_

Before I could stand up, he wrapped his small arms around my shoulders and began to cry. "You can stop now! It's enough. Really! It's enough, Aniki."

He hugged me even more, but I wanted to push him away as I felt the clammy skin of my back clinging onto his chest. I could feel his heart thrusting out of its flesh, pushing itself onto the surface of mine.

"You think that I can stop now, Sasuke? I'm not such a weakling-"  
"Aniki is never a weakling!" he screamed into my ear, his fists becoming tighter.

Then, time stopped as he whispered into my ear: "You don't have to be the best in the village."

Slowly, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes slowly to look at the moon that stared down at me as if laughing.

In a harsh tone, I scolded, "Are you crazy, Sasuke?!"

_Why are you so kind to someone like me?_

Quietly, he began to sob, "Just come home."

_How do you know exactly what I want to hear?_

I hung my head so that he couldn't see my eyes. "I can't come home empty-handed."

_No matter how much you work, the expectations become higher. There will be a time that you too will hate me because I will disappoint you by being just mortal._

"Aniki…I…I just want you to come home. To smile like you did before for me."

"Me? Smile?" I laughed and I was about to stand up, but he clung onto me.

_When had someone like me ever have some kind of emotion besides apathy?_

"You used to when it was just the two of us practicing. But now, you look tired all the time."

_So, he was the only one that noticed that I had lost weight because of all the secret practicing late at night without our parents noticing..._

It was then that he kissed me on the cheek. "I won't get mad if you are just an ordinary person."

_Just ordinary…? Impossible._

"Our parents won't allow such a thing."  
"Then, I will protect you, Aniki." Pleading, he sobbed, "Just come home."

_Because you told me to, now, I can't.  
You don't understand what you're asking because you're just a child._

_You don't know what you're telling me because I am an adult._

**+/+/+/+/+/**  
Immediately opening his eyes, the crimson-eyed man stared motionlessly in front of him.  
Pushing his hand on his knee to get up, he surveyed the forest around him and motioned for his partner to follow him. He walked so silently that even his footsteps couldn't be heard as he stepped onto the dried grass.

Even though he was tired, tired of everything, he kept on going without changing the straight line in the middle of his expressionless lips.

He wondered why he came back to this exact spot and the memory held within it appeared in his dream.

_Until that day you crumpled all my beliefs and efforts, I was perfectly fine without you._

_You were just another being in my household until that moment you bared your heart so foolishly into my ears._

_So, without warning, when did you catch up to me?  
When did you ever find out that I was truly empty?_

_When did you start to fill up the spaces that had been bare for so long?_

Closing his eyes for a split second, he relived that moment of life that his little brother had brought back inside of him.  
In an illusion of five minutes…

_/"I love you, Aniki."  
Impatiently, I snapped, "Shut up! You don't understand what you're saying."_

_Finally, no matter how strongly he wanted to hold me, I pulled his arms off of me. Acting as if nothing stung like crazy, I stood up. "I can't come home, Sasuke."_

_With my back facing him, I felt him looking at me helplessly. "Why?!"  
I felt some sort of sick satisfaction at hearing your voice crack._

_"When you're older, you'll realize life isn't that simple."  
And with that, I left him._

_That night, I killed my best friend./  
_

Once again, the man confidently lifted his chin and walked onward with his unchanging, stone face. The man just kept on walking, unable to lift his head to the bright, cloudy sky. All he could hear were the ravens crowing above him, hungering for something to eat and looking at him as if they wanted to eat his rotten soul.

_I never wanted you to catch up to me…  
…because I was afraid of losing the little life you had given me.  
Therefore, only you can take it away._

_All I can do is move forward until you kill me again, Sasuke.  
For real this time._

_Finish what you started!_

Without warning, as snow began to fall quietly around them, winter had finally come. He wouldn't come here ever again, this decrepit place where all the 'caution' stickers were torn, the roof tiles were missing, and the wood was eaten from the inside.

_But even when you kill me, I will never say that  
You were my home, you stupid boy._

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author's note: **Oh gosh. I made this fic on a whim, but it made me cry.

Love,  
Yui

9/18/2006 9:23:59 AM – Los Angeles  
9/19/06 1:23 AM – Tokyo


End file.
